32 ME:DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Friday, October; 19 1984 _ Electrolysis Diane Cee—) by BOOKS FREE 10 MINUTES First Appointment Only Emile Salon 642-3315 31409 Southfield Rd. I let your words do the talking in the North of 13 Mile Rd. A Jewish romance in the bayou BY JOSEPH COHEN Special to The Jewish News JEWISH NEWS Cal! The Jewish News Advertising Department at g EE'llES1 424-8833 CLEANERS 10 Locations Save every day at Peerless. Same day cleaning service. 12uSp ecial E 1 .99 pants, jackets, sweaters, skirts and blouses. Men's Business Shirts 59 ° Introducing! Pick-up and delivery service 892-4444 Northwestern at Southfield at 12 Mile & Middlebelt 12 Mile Northwestern Near F&M Drugs Near Baskin Robbins Near Buddy's ▪ 569-6252 851-1164 357-2904 Visa, Master Cixge, and Personal Checks Accepted • No gimmicks • No capons • No limits • A • • • )1 • • • • A • • ♦ • • • • '16 Love, mom 4 Has your SON, DAUGHTER, GRANDCHILD or maybe a FRIEND, just left for college, or a job somewhere? 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Box 70127 Satisfaction Guaranteed Lansing, MI 48907 1 New Orleans — Not only has there been a dearth of books about the Jews of the South in general, there has been, for all the topic's rich appeal, precious little written about New Orleans' ante- and post-bellum Jews. The late Ber- tram Korn's The Early Jews of New Orleans stops in 1848. There have been a couple of biographies, none recent, of Judah P. Benjamin and Judah Touro. Nothing more. The fiction ,is sparse, too. At least it was until now! Belva Plain, the widely acclaimed novelist of the best-selling Ever- green and Eden Burning, has brought the tension, turbulence and tragedy of the Civil War to bear on two New Orleans Jewish families in Crescent City (De- lacorte Press). Her book is well researched, impressively authen- tic in its treatment of the highly assimilated Sephardic-German "Jewish Creoles," authoritative in its use of Civil War battles,- fast-paced and brimming over with human drama. The characters are powerfully drawn; they literally hit you be- tween the eyes, particularly the heroine, the beautiful, long- suffering, courageously unselfish Miriam Raphael Mendes who, without trying, out Scarletts Scarlett O'Hara in several de- partments though she is no good, as was the heroine of Gone With the Wind, at being a bitch. Despite this and other similarities, Crescent City is hardly a Jewish Gone With the Wind, though comparisons will repeatedly be made. Since Belva Plain tells as fancy a story as did Margaret Mitchell, people will in- evitably connect the two through- out the coming months while this new saga of paradise expected, realized, mislaid, found, lost again and regained climbs to the top of the best-seller lists. The first hard-cover printing is 150,000 copies, and several lead- ing book clubs have made it a dual selection. I don't often read historical ro- mances, but this one proved ir- resistible, both for the sheer pleasure of the narrative and for its insights into 19th Century "Jewish-Creole" life. I soon realized that just because it falls into a genre of the historical ro- mance, it should not be sold short. Given diversity of its subject- matter — the inter-actions be- tween Jews and Catholics, Jews and slaves, whites and blacks, in- cluding "free persons of color," fathers and sons, pro-slavery fac- tionalists and abolitionsts, as- similated Jews and tradi- tionalists, male chauvinists (there were a lot of them!) and feminists, and militants and pacifists — the accomplished handling of the characters and the ideas they harbor may make the sum of the parts of this novel greater than the whole. It has a lot of attractions. Among these attractions is the author's profound awareness of the peculiarly bifurcated alle- giances of Southern Jews and their resulting predicaments. Basic among these was the prob- lem of the Jew, who, being South- ern, openly accepted slavery, but, in being Jewish, had unalterably Belva Plain to oppose it. Judah P. Benjamin — his is one of many brief though charming cameo appearances or references to real Jews — is both praised and condemned for his pro-slavery speeches in Congress. Plain is also sensitive to the unique combination of beauty and terror that has always marked the Southern heartland; she doesn't flinch from violence, of which there is plenty. But unlike so many other historical romances,, this book doesn't exploit violence for its own sake. Far from it! Her chapter describing the misery and despair of prisoners-of-war on both sides is as moving and as genuine anti-war writing as any passage in Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. It is to Plain's credit that while she authenticates the Southern `Quality's" emphasis on grace and courtesy in speech and man- ner (interlarded all too often as it was with hypocrisy), she avoids the sentimentality that so often makes historical romances super- ficial, if not nauseating. Above reproach in these mat- ters, the novel does have' an occa- sional inconsistency. Far exam- ple, we are told fairly early that the bayou at the heroine's country plantation is filled with alliga- tors, one of whom kills and eats her pet dog. All are wdrned to keep their distance. Much later, , at a week-long party at the plan- tation we read, "Men and women - bathed separately in the bayou." Both sexes, I should think, would have preferred to forego their ablutions if they had themselves - read the first part of the story. A lovely blooper, nonetheless. Another quibble is the fre- quency of coincidence. More than - once Plain asks us to suspend our disbelief to an uncomfortable ex- tent. They may be all right in a bad historical romance; it shouldn't be necessary in a good one. If there are too many chanc6 encounters (and even one is too many) none of them occur in the love story which dominates much of the book. Miriam Mendes is in a loveless marriage to a "Jewish Creole" with a quadroon mistress. Out of futility, she un- dertakes an affair with a gentile; Andre Perrin, the Rhett Butler of Crescent City. In the end, after she - discovers that behind his sex ap peal there hides a callous war pro- fiteer she gives him the "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" 'Crescent City' by Belva Plain (Delacorte Press). routine. Not in the same words, of course. This final encounter is ac- companied from its beginning by - a summer storm. If Scarlett gone with the wind, then Miriam is back with the rain. There's somone else waiting in the wings, and, you guessed it he's got a ticket Andre lacks. The end is predictable but, happily, a lot of the incidents in the story are not and it's fun reading. And it's important, too, in its resurrection of the lifestyles of the exotic "Jewish Creoles," whose likes we will never again encounter. Copyright 1984, Joseph Cohen. - Sabbath observances defined Sabbath observance, the many traditional obligations, and the problems affecting the sanctify- ing of the holy day, are provided definitive guidance in an express- ive work on the subject. In Shemirath Shabbath (F.eldheim Publishers), Ray Yeshoah Y. Neuwirth, provides, as the subti- tle asserts, "a guide to the practi- cal observance of Sabbath. Rabbi Neuwirth's informative volume is a revised edition of his 1965 text, which was first pub- lished in Hebrew. The current work was prepared by W. Grangewood in collaboration with the author. While the subjects covered are admittedly those confronting the Orthodox Jew, the compiled work, and an addendum volume planned to be issued soon, treat the Sabbath observance problems as matters of concern for all Jews. The laws involving kashrut are among the major ones under dis- cussion. Washing dishes and grinding meat enter into the law-defining. Attention tc,) clothes, body neatness, transfer of objects from area to area and gam- ing also are defined. An understanding of the basic Sabbath principles as a day of rest, presented halachically, gains understanding and appre- ciation. They make this volume a valuable guide to Jewish obser- vance. Introductory paragraphs to this informative and scholarly work provide this definition for the Sabbath: "Sabbath is described by the Talmud (Tractate Shabbath 10b) as God's precious gift to the Jewish people from His treasure house. It is a sign to the nations of the world that God has imbued His people with part of His own sanctity. (See Exodus 31:13 and'-- Rashi's commentary there.) "Of all the mitzvoth in the To- rah, none distinguishes the e Jewish people from the other na- tions of the world as much as the